[V8] What a chintzy way to get ahead, or I absolutely HATE it when this happens.....

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Well, I had another visitation with my V8 yesterday afternoon.  It was all
back together, the last of the little tubular gizzies that connect various
parts of the fuel injection together with the egr or other valve had arrived
and been fitted place.  Thus done, the wrench had run the car for, oh,
twenty minutes or so.

You will recall, perhaps, that the car originally went into the hospital to
correct a minor oil leak that was causing oil occasionally to leak down onto
the right side exhaust manifold, and appeared to be getting worse.  The
initial concern was for the right side head gasket, but opon complete
disassembly, it was felt that a cam tower seal was the culprit so that was
replaced.

BUT, since we were there, the timing belt was completely renewed, even
though it was only half way to required service; AND the waterpump was
changed AND the tensioner AND the wheels themselves, as the wrench
thought...and I agreed....that they were not as smooth or tight as through
they were changed at 60K.  AND since we were there, we decided to replace
the hydraulic pump as it was leaking and originally, we had discussed
replacing it anyway at the next timing belt service for sure.  In addition,
the we also did an ignition tuneup, with new distributor caps, pulled the
spark plugs and checked them,  and replaced the oil seals for the
distributors also....they were not leaking but we were concerned that they
might start soon.  There were several other obscure parts that connected
this or that, mostly little tubular thingy that had to be specially
ordered...the last of which were NOT in the Audi parts chain ANYWHERE in
North America, and took two weeks to arrive.  (Ordered through my trusty
Audi dealer in Waterville, and if they said the parts weren't here, they
weren't.  I've known them well for more than 20 years...same parts
manager....same parts department employee (1):  it isn't a huge place,
afterall.).

Anyway.  The car ran for twenty minutes or so, and.........the oil leak was
still there.

Soooooooooooooo, out of ideas, the heads come off today, and we will examine
head gaskets and the heads themselves.

Under the broad and general concept of "what ifs", my mechanic and I chatted
genially yesterday about once they were off, having the heads ported and
polished and some neat new cams installed for that little bit of extra
oooomph that you always need.  Like when you are stopped on a country road,
and a large bull moose comes out of the weeds in back of you and decides to
charge.  I mean, it happens ALL the time:  why I think I read an article
about a Subaru Forrester that was masticated by an angry Bull Moose last
week, and I think the newspaper article quoted police as saying that the
Subaru might have gotten away, if it had a true Quattro All Wheel drive
system, and more acceleration.....But my wife, who had been sitting in the
car while I went in for visitation with the V8, came into the shop then, and
insisted that I take her home so that she could start dinner.....

Sigh.  Soooo, stay tuned.  I can hardly wait to see what the underside of
the head looks like.

Since I am soooo far into this project at this point, I was wondering if
anyone knows where there are some tan sport seats, and failing that, I
wonder if anyone knows if sport seats out of ANY Type 44 Audi will fit?
Just thinking.  And while you are reading this, I will have sneaked over to
the BIRA web site.

Those bigger cams will require bigger front brakes, too.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Roger